


Got a Line in the Sky

by orphan_account



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-01
Updated: 2011-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-17 10:43:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/176029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Duncan's not sure anyone's ever particularly clocked him when this thing's begun its steady rise to the surface before, so Brent figuring out something's up – it's unexpected, and as far as Duncan is aware, unprecedented.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got a Line in the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Don't write hockey rpf when you're drunk, kids. You'll either get nonsensical porn like this, or you'll get something I've loosely called “Jonathan Toews: Worst Faerie Ever”, and believe you me, you'll just start drinking more once they start chirping at you from their word docs.
> 
> Warning for the kind of dub-con that comes from any sex-pollen-esque trope.
> 
> Title from "Radar Love" by Golden Earring because I think I'm hilarious.

There's something in the atoms and synapses that make up Duncan Keith that's different. It remains quite hidden, most of the time, buried deep within him in some inscrutable hiding-hole of consciousness. He doesn't think about it if he can help it. It's never been a thing to consider; it simply exists in him and there's nothing he can do to change it, and he honestly forgets it's even a part of him, most days.

Most days he functions normally. Most days he's aware and in control of his own body, his own thoughts and responses. And that's enough. That's normal.

But sometimes, very rarely, the right thing will prompt that alien _other_ to light up all at once, send it roaring into his blood and up, up, higher and closer to the surface until it's trembling just beneath his skin, near enough to seep out in a perfect, specific quantity. It infects with _exactitude_ , and so far in his life? Duncan has never found a way to stop it once it's begun.

It always seems to start like this: when things go stressed and chaotic in his own head, for whatever reason, nerves going all a-jangle like so many keys on a keychain from unnamed frustrations on small scales, enough that he can't put his finger on them all in the confusion. It gains certainty and strength when he can't skate it off, when rushing from blue line to red line to blue line and back until he has to stop, alone on the ice, hands on his knees as he fights not to vomit his exhaustion out doesn't relieve the pressure at all.

So no, it's not always as quiet in Duncan's head as it might seem. Just because he doesn't act out like Kaner or Bur or Sharpy, who always have something to say, because he doesn't spout off at the slightest hint of PR opportunity doesn't mean his head doesn't get jumbled up with thoughts barreling into a hundred other thoughts, twisting in on themselves once he dares try to unravel the scrambled-up odds and ends of his own mind and when that happens -

When _this_ happens, there's only one outlet for it, and he's been feeling the ominous prickling of it under his skin for a few weeks now.

+

Brent notices. Duncan's not sure anyone's ever particularly clocked him when this thing's begun its steady rise to the surface before, so Brent figuring out something's up – it's unexpected, and as far as Duncan is aware, unprecedented.

Duncan thinks he first noticed several days ago, since he's been sliding Duncan worried little looks all through practices since four, five, maybe? days ago. He doesn't know what's tipped Brent off, but, well. There it is.

Duncs makes it worse, he knows, by avoiding the kid. It's for his own good, he tells himself. It's preservation of a friendship; if what happened with the other people his...quirk...has unleashed itself on happens with Brent, their game is fucked. He'd lose his best friend, if not the best d-partner of his whole career. The risk is too big. He keeps conversations short, begs off plans claiming tiredness, muscle aches, whatever gets him away.

He's pretty sure Brent's not buying a word of the bullshit he's shoveling him.

He doesn't count on Brent being a persistent fucker. He should've; it's not like he doesn't know him, and while he may seem like the nice mannerly type, that respects boundaries and comfort zones, he's also pretty unwilling to let it go if he thinks someone he cares about is in trouble.

Duncan's pretty sure that's what he thinks, that _Duncs_ is the one in trouble. It's laughable, actually; if Duncan was able to distance himself enough from this, he'd probably get a good chuckle out of that. As it is, he just goes quiet (quieter) around Brent and prays he can keep on top of it this time around.

+

And that works for a little bit. Buys Duncs a day or two more with nothing turning itself inside-out.

When it does finally fall apart – because, Duncan will realize sometime in the hazy aftermath, it was never a matter of avoiding it altogether, just a matter of putting it off and making it burn that more intensely for being so tamped down – it's because Brent manages to corner Duncan at the impromptu barbeque Campbell throws on a rare day off.

It's early April and the whole team can use this kind of brief reprieve from the ever-building pressure of the playoff race.

It's warm for Chicago, too, and Soupy's kitchen is filled with the breeze finding its way in through opened windows. Duncan came back inside for another beer ten minutes ago, his sandals slapping against the tile and echoing weirdly in Soupy's house. Everyone else is still outside, shooting the shit around the grill, and in here it's quiet and empty.

He breathes, but the tension coiled unrelenting around his spine unravels only slightly. He digs his fingernails into his palm in a savage, frustrated gesture. Fuck. Why won't this _just go away_?

He looks up and tries to compose himself when the screen door to the back porch slams open. The sound of Sharpy trying to drown out whatever story Bur's trying to tell by yelling over him drifts into the main house, accompanied by ridiculous, raucous laughter seconds later as something or another overturns with a distinct crash.

Brent wanders into the kitchen and salutes Duncan with his own half-empty beer. “Wondered where you'd gone,” he comments, scratching the back of his neck idly. He leans against the counter and eyes Duncan over the next swig he takes.

Duncan shrugs. His cotton t-shirt is sweat-damp where his shoulders lift the material. “Been right here.”

Brent gives him a half-smile. He seems distracted, rolling his beer bottle between his palms. His hands are big, careful around it. The condensation wets his fingers and the fluorescent lights in Soupy's ceiling makes it gleam damply from fingertips to knuckles.

Duncan feels the familiar something start a ferocious clamoring inside him and he clears his throat, face heating. He looks away, shoves the clamor back down ruthlessly.

Except totally blanking it like that is a monumental effort at this point, and all at once, he finds himself blinking confusedly against a sudden dizziness.

He knows the counter is only a foot away, and he puts an arm out to catch himself as his vision goes blurry.

He catches Brent, instead, who must have skirted around to Dunc's side of the counter just in time, and Duncan's hand forms an involuntary fist in Brent's t-shirt as he struggles to hold himself upright and still fight to keep the clamor at bay. Keep it away from Brent, just long enough for him to go somewhere else – to go -

He hears Brent saying his name, worried and close, and the force in Duncan kicks up a final, significant notch. It makes his breath come short and it should be unpleasant, but he's not gasping in _pain_ , he just needs, he needs. “Seabs, Seabsy, you need to leave-” he manages, even as his own fingers contradict him, tightening their fist and balling up more fabric in Brent's shirt.

He rolls his head back and forth, a loose pendulum-swing on his neck, and Brent brings up a hand to steady him.

Duncan loses his last tenuous grip on the thing the second Brent's hesitant palm cups the nape of his neck. He folds in on himself, gets hard so fast it almost hurts, and would've fallen if Brent hadn't grabbed his forearms, held him up bodily.

Except – Duncan knows how this goes, and he can see the second it careens out of himself and slams like a wrecking ball into _Brent_.

The force of it sends them both reeling. Brent's eyes go abruptly wide and dark, his mouth falling open as he pants his way through the first shocks of it reaching his system. “What - _Duncs_ ,” he says, before leaning in to push his nose into the curls at the back of Duncan's neck. Duncan can feel him breathe in deeply, shudder through the exhale.

It's such a helpless, unthinking gesture, it reminds Duncan how little choice Brent's going to have about giving into this. Duncan has to say it, has to make him understand, and he tries to string together the words to - “M'sorry, Seabs, I can't – ah, don't, don't! -”, almost, can't finish for making a low sound when Brent digs his fingers fumblingly into the tough muscle below Duncan's ribs, turns Duncan around to face the counter. He stays pressed against Duncan's back, keeps him in place.

“No, no, please, I got you,” Brent mumbles desperately into the skin of Duncan's neck, “Please, oh god, Duncs, please, I don't wanna stop-,” and Duncan groans, can't possibly put up a fight against _that_. He puts his hands flat on the counter, braces himself up and lets his head hang loose on his neck. He closes his eyes, tries to calm his breathing, and lets Brent explore.

Brent is all focus, intent on Duncan in a way that's eerily familiar, similar to how he is when he and Duncs share the ice. That thought registers in the last unaffected part of Duncan's mind.

He'll regret this when it wears off, and distantly knows that when it does, everything's going to be fucked, but right now it's too overwhelming. It's too good. Too abso-fucking-lutely perfectly what he needs.

Brent mouths at the tendon delineating Duncan's neck and shoulder, scraping his teeth across the sensitive skin and once, biting down with care. It's still hard enough to have Duncan jerking, and Brent tightens his grip on Duncan's waist.

“Brent,” Duncan forces out, “Brent, you gotta – here, here -.” He twists in Brent's grasp, wants very badly suddenly to see Brent better, be face-to-face. Brent seems to be on board with that, and moves when Duncan does, so that Duncan finds himself trapped against the counter with Brent caging him in. He can _smell_ him, this close, whether that's a product of his influence or just – how this would work without it, he doesn't know. Either way, he breathes it in, fills his lungs and twitches forward to get more. God, it has to be this influence; he'd remember if Brent smelled this good normally, he thinks, giving in to the urge to run his nose up from the hollow of Brent's throat to directly under his ear.

Brent makes a sound like a whine, tilting his head to one side to provide Duncan better access, and Duncan's mind goes all to static. It's fucking _submissive_ is what it is, that helpless baring of the throat, and Duncan obliges the mutual instinct thickening the air. He sets his teeth in a possessive bite to the thin skin under Brent's jaw. The stubble there scrapes his tongue and Brent groans, gets a hand in Duncan's hair. He pulls, hard, big palm spread out over Duncan's skull and fingers twisted between the strands. It stings enough that Duncan's eyes water; it feels good enough it punches all the breath from his lungs.

“Duncs, Duncs -” Brent is murmuring it on a loop, and Duncan blearily registers Brent trying to tug him closer, higher and – oh.

He goes without complaint, kisses Brent in Soupy's stupidly huge kitchen when they're both whammied with this crazy concoction that lives in Duncan's blood, and it's unbearably good. So unbearably good, getting Brent's lips to yield under his own. He tests the give of his bottom lip with a hard nip and then gets slammed back into the counter with a growl for his trouble. Brent takes over the kiss, licks in hot and demanding, and jesus, Duncan couldn't move if he wanted to.

Duncan can only moan into it, fist his hands up again in Brent's shirt, and spread his legs for it. There's a roaring in his ears that he recognizes as the influence driving this entire scene, and it's nearly an entity unto itself with the sheer _want_ he can hear in it. In him. It's...kind of impossible to think about it right now. All he knows is that when Brent shifts to get a leg in between Duncan's, puts his thigh thick and solid right against the crotch of Duncan's jeans and _moves_ , that alien something in Duncan hisses in delirious pleasure and Duncan's eyes roll up in his head.

Brent is breathing hard into Duncan's ear, has maneuvered himself into position so that he's rubbing up against Duncan's hip every time he moves, and what with the fucking noises that keep escaping him – rough little grunts that ensure Duncan's never going to be able to work out with him again without getting hard; deep gasps whenever Duncan's mind flutters hazily back on board enough to let him move his hands, to skate them down Brent's sides and under his shirt, touching at the skin there – this is going to be over pretty fucking soon.

It takes Brent coming first that pushes Duncan over the edge. Duncan's not sure what he even _did_ to kick it off; he just ran his fingernails over the sweaty jut of Brent's hipbone and said something he can't even remember, sex-drunk and stupid. Either way, it made Brent's head go back, made him shove up hard against Duncan and shudder it out with hands wringing Duncan's hips to bruises.

By the time he begins to recover, Duncan is already gone, biting at the fabric of Brent's t-shirt where it stretches thin over one shoulder, muffling his cry as he comes, too, with not so much as a button popped on his pants. Graceless - but isn't that the whole point whenever this thing digs in its heels?

It's retreated, he thinks, petting at Brent's side as he tries to collect himself, returned to its innocuous simmer in the far reaches of his consciousness where he can't even keep proper tabs on it, but that's okay. For now, it's enough that's it's done, that's it fucking gone again.

The kitchen doesn't have a window directly to the outside, but Duncan can still feel the rush of a breeze through the house as it cools a bead of sweat he can feel running slowly down his neck. He untangles himself reluctantly and takes a step back. Brent's flushed, too, slumped bonelessly against the counter with his shirt rucked up, pink-cheeked in an obvious post-sex kind of way.

Thinking about other people seeing Brent like this makes something snarl inside Duncan, and at this point he can't untangle what's his normal self and what's the whatever-it-is crawling through his DNA. That hasn't happened before. Usually, this happens and it snaps Duncan out of whatever funk he's in, incidentally fucking up whatever relationship he had with the person it chose to glom onto, during. He can usually feel a more distinct change, but he looks at Brent and he still feels hot and confused inside, still wants to keep Brent here, and not-here, take him back to either of their houses and set him down on the sofa for pizza and beer and one of the _Saw_ movies, followed by Brent pressing him back into the cushions and -

It all flashes through Duncan in an instant, this whole staggering epiphany, as he's turned around to grab a handful of paper towels. When he turns back to offer Brent a few, Brent's watching him, his expression careful on his usually-open face.

Duncan raises an eyebrow and Brent cracks a tiny smile. It doesn't last, though, and he's taking a deep breath the next minute, asking, “Okay. Okay – what _was_ that?”

And that's the kicker, isn't it? Duncan answers pretty honestly, all things considered: “I, uh, I kind of have no fucking clue.”

Brent's face goes all funny, and Duncan adds, “I'm, uh. I'm sorry, if that wasn't something – if you didn't want that. I should've.” He stops, shoves his palm into one eye in sudden terrified frustration. “Fuck, I should've stopped, I'm sorry.”

“Hey,” Brent grabs his wrist and takes Duncan's hand away from his face. He flicks the side of Duncan's head, then goes one better and cuffs him across the back of it. “You think I couldn't take you?” Then, awkwardly, “You shouldn't have stopped, all right.”

Duncan blinks at him, and then they both look away like they're embarrassed fucking teenagers, busy themselves with cleaning themselves up. They make faces and bitch quietly, and when they're convinced they don't look _quite_ as obvious, Duncan grabs the beer he'd originally come in for. He makes to head back out. Probably to say his goodbyes, beat a hasty retreat from there, then go home to bang his head against a wall and jerk off a couple times.

Brent catches his wrist, instead, jerks his forward motion to an abrupt halt right inside Soupy's patio door. “Hey, so. Feel like ditching early? Just, we could go watch that movie you were talking about. With what's-his-name in it. ”

Duncan eyes him, unsure. His gaze slides out the door, and he can see everyone more or less paired off on their own. Johnny and Hjammer are in a conversation sprawled on the ground, seemingly oblivious to Kaner, slightly behind them, ripping up Soupy's nice green grass and placing it in tufts in Johnny's hair. Sharpie and Bur are...nowhere to be found, actually, and Duncan spares a brief, suspicious thought about that. Soupy himself is laughing loudly at something Fraser just said, sitting at the lawn table with a deck of cards dealt between the two of them, Brouws and Laddy.

He and Brent are probably missed, in theory, but right now – they won't be _missed_.

Duncan takes his hand off the handle to the screen door and turns around. This shouldn't be so easy, but. “Yeah. Yeah, a'right, man, let's go.”

Brent smiles at him, drops his wrist, and bumps him with his shoulder when he passes to make his way out the other way. “I feel like we should apologize to all Soupy's kitchen appliances,” he whispers when they're passing through the kitchen again.

Duncan swallows down laughter – he's still wary about discussing it, not that Brent's apparently having that particular compunction – but agrees in a thoughtful drawl. “Get him a fruit basket.”

Brent grins all-out at that, and something shivers hotly in Duncan's chest. This time it doesn't feel like anything but Duncan at the core of it, simple and wanting and fastidiously stripped-down.

Duncan's not totally sure how he feels about that, but he and Brent have fallen into matching strides as usual, navigating around each other without thinking, and everything seems to be only shifted, not turned upside-down like it usually is and. He blows out a breath, half-relief and half-lingering worry. Brent slides a glance at him, one eyebrow raised in question as he holds open Soupy's front door.

After a moment, Duncan shakes his head - _nothing, nothing_ \- and follows him out.


End file.
